.TH getopt 1 .SH Name getopt \- parse command options .SH Syntax .NXR "getopt command" .B set \- \- \*\`getopt optstring .B $\(**\*\` .SH Description .NXR "getopt command" The .PN getopt command breaks up options in command lines for easy parsing by Shell procedures and checks for legal options. The .B optstring option letters are recognized if a letter is followed by a colon, the option expects an argument which may or may not be separated from it by white space. For further information, see .MS getopt 3 . .PP The special option, specified by two minus signs (\- \-), delimits the end of the options. If the delimiters are used explicitly, .PN getopt recognizes it; otherwise, .PN getopt generates it. In either case, .PN getopt places the delimiter at the end of the options. The positional parameters ($1 $2 ...) of the shell are reset so that each option is preceded by a single minus sign (\-) and is in its own positional parameter; each option argument is also parsed into its own positional parameter. .SH Examples The following code fragment shows how you can process the arguments for a command that can take the options .B a or .B b, as well as the option .B o, which requires an argument: .EX #!/bin/sh5 set \-\- \*\`getopt abo: $\(**\*\` if [ $? != 0 ] then echo $\s-1USAGE\s+1 exit 2 fi for i in $\(** do case $i in \-a \(bv \-b) \s-1FLAG\s+1=$i; shift;; \-o) \s-1OARG\s+1=$2; shift 2;; \-\-) shift; break;; esac done .EE This code accepts any of the following as equivalent: .EX cmd \-aoarg file file cmd \-a \-o arg file file cmd \-oarg \-a file file cmd \-a \-oarg \-\- file file .EE .SH Diagnostics The .PN getopt command prints an error message on the standard error when it encounters an option letter not included in .IR optstring . .SH See Also sh5(1), getopt(3)
